Zebra Seeking Spoons

Hope is a strange thing during a flare.

It does not arrive like a sunrise,
bold and golden,
chasing away every shadow.

Sometimes hope is smaller than that.

Sometimes hope is the decision
to take the next breath
when your body feels like a battlefield.

Sometimes it is the glass of water
on the nightstand,
the heating pad,
the medication,
the text message unanswered but read.

Sometimes hope is simply staying.

A severe flare can make the world feel very small.
Pain narrows horizons.
Fatigue steals tomorrow.
Symptoms whisper lies:
This is forever.
You will never feel better.
You are losing yourself.

But flares are storytellers,
and not always truthful ones.

The body in crisis speaks with a voice
amplified by suffering,
turning moments into eternities.

Yet somewhere beyond the storm,
there is the memory of gentler days.

Days when your laughter came easier.
Days when your body loosened its grip.
Days when you caught your breath
and remembered what relief felt like.

Those days are evidence.

Not a promise that everything will be fixed.
Not a guarantee of healing.

Just proof that this moment
is not the only chapter
your life has ever known.

When the flare is at its worst,
do not ask yourself to carry hope for a year,
or a month,
or even tomorrow.

Carry it for five minutes.

Then five more.

Let hope become small enough
to fit in your trembling hands.

Hope can be the belief
that you will make it through today.

That your worth remains intact
even when your body cannot do what you wish.

That rest is not failure.

That surviving is enough.

That the person you are
still exists beneath the pain.

The flare may be loud,
but it is not your entire story.

The storm may be fierce,
but it is not the sky.

And even when you cannot see the light,
even when exhaustion has dimmed every certainty,
hope remains—

a tiny lantern in shaking hands,

flickering,

fragile,

yet refusing to go out.